Active/passive systems for range or depth sensing, which are based on a calibrated projector-camera or camera-camera pair, are one of the most reliable and cost-effective ways to generate a depth map of a scene. One limitation of sensing systems is the computational intensity of the depth map estimation process, which limits the acquisition speed of the system. Other depth sensing systems, such as Time-of-Flight systems, have similar limitations. There is a trade-off between spatial resolution and computational complexity; specifically, the larger the spatial resolution of the depth map, the more computationally expensive the depth map generation process becomes. Consequently, when improvement of depth data throughput is desired, it is typically performed at the expense of the detail in the depth map. Additionally, in most depth-sensing applications, even though a particular scene is monitored for depth information, only an area or subject within the scene is usually of interest. By performing adaptive depth map reconstruction with variable spatial resolution (higher on regions of interest, lower elsewhere), data throughput can be controlled.
What is needed in this art is a system and method which can adaptively reconstruct a depth map of a scene.